We Americans thrive on news of politicians' affairs, but live double standards ourselves.

Just when I was getting comfortable with Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton being in power at the national level, news of the Edwards once more hits the media.

Elizabeth Edwards has had her book published. It's called Resilience, and included in it is information about her husband John Edwards' affair during the most recent presidential campaign.

Ms. Edwards is hitting the talk shows and is making the rounds in the news. Like her, I know it's horrifying when we find that our spouse is having an affair. We mistakenly figured this would never happen to us. But to be truthful folks, this happens more than it doesn't happen. Those of us who live in a dream world and think that it won't happen to us are due for a hard fall at sometime in our marriage. Few of us will be spared.

Or we may find that we are the straying partner. We may find all kinds of excuses why we have a right to stray, but most likely, if we do, we are no different than John Edwards himself. We may not get the $400 haircuts, but we can be gullible to the flirtations towards us by members of the opposite sex. And if one of us is sick, is perhaps suffering from a terminal illness, and we're feeling left out of the entire picture, to stray becomes all that more tempting.

I'm not saying that John Edwards only did the natural thing for a good looking man. Nor am I saying that I'm surprised that it happened. He had an affair. He tried to hide it. He didn't confess the complete extent of the affair. He probably didn't admit that he gave in to an alluring woman who may have been looking for another feather in her hat and a baby in her tummy.

But let me set this whole affair aside and look at the political race that included a very important message voiced by both John and Elizabeth Edwards. They were alone in criticizing the world's major corporations as being among the major reasons for inequality in this country. They reminded us that you don't negotiate with these corporations. You regulate them and pass legislation that trims their feathers. When you develop healthcare reform, you don't ask the big insurance companies what they are willing to take. You develop the reform with the American people in mind, not how the insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies can continue to make their billions and trillions.

We will never know what kind of president John Edwards would have become, nor what kind of First Lady Elizabeth would have been. It is probably good that he left the campaign because his message wasn't winning votes, not because his affair was discovered.

But even if that had happened, I would be much more upset. In most countries on this globe, a candidate's love life and his or her political statesmanship are two different things. If we look at some of the world's most successful leaders throughout history, many many of them had affairs, but they were still darn good leaders. Just a few have been the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., President John Kennedy, President Franklin Roosevelt and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Maybe when we witness leaders being in the midst of an affair, we discover the hypocrites that we all really are deep down inside. Or perhaps we love being the voyeur of seeing a couple in turmoil. We find the evil one and condemn that person. The other half of the couple may come off as the victim or hero. It will all depend on how she or he handles the publicity. Does she write a book about it? Does she keep her mouth shut? Does she welcome the other woman and child into her life? Does she forgive? We're all watching.

We all love the black and white of affairs. One is the bad person. The other is the good person. We trample the bad person, and if the other is enough of a victim, we will help that one lick his or her wounds.

Meanwhile more than half of all marriages today fall apart because of a variety of pressures on the institution. We have to get over the idea that these marriages have been failures. No, two people have simply changed. Circumstances in their lives have changed. Both may be ready for new relationships, new adventures, new dreams. They may have deep deep respect for one another, but they may also know that it's time to move on.

Maybe this is what the Edwards should do, or the Clintons. Only the couple knows for sure. But whatever they do, they shouldn't live a mirage just so the public will like them. Their personal life should be their own, and it's not fair for us, their adoring public, to force them to stay together when the spark is gone. It may be time for each to move on, becoming more whole and happier in the long run.

Are we willing to let our political figures manage their own personal relationships? Would we want them to force us to live relationships we knew were wrong for us?

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